Hattie's Visible Learning

       Based on the analysis of 800 meta-analyses, 50,000 research articles, and 240 millions students, Hattie (2012) suggests “visible teaching and learning occurs when learning is the explicit goal, when it is appropriately challenging, when the teacher and student both seek to ascertain whether and to what degree the challenging goal is attained, when there is deliberate practice aimed at attaining mastery of the goal, when there is feedback given and sought, and when there are active, passionate and engaging people participating in the act of learning” (p. 22). Most significant discovery of his studies is that any intervention can make a difference in student learning. He displays the ways of maximizing impact on visible learning by calculating and ranking the effect size. In his barometer, 0.4 is considered a high point, that is any intervention with an effect size less than 0.4 does not produce desired effects. The highest influence on student achievement is “how to develop high expectations for each student” (p.270) with a score of 1.44. Drew (2022) defines high expectation as “believing students should always strive to achieve their best” (para. 2). The top five approaches he recommends to set high expectations in the classroom are “teach about growth mindset, focus on efforts, ask students to try again, express unconditional positive regard, set achievable but difficult tasks” (para.1). 

       There are many surprising influences revealed in Hattie’s study. Some of the commonly neglected negative impacts on student achievement include:

• Not being liked in class (-0.19)

• Lack of sleep (-0.05). 

What teachers think usually works, but actually have little impact:

• Use of PowerPoint (0.26)

• Individualized instruction (0.22)

• Learning styles (0.17)

What teacher do not allow in class, but have high impact:

• Teachers working together as evaluators of their impact (0.93)

• Seek help from peers (0.83)

• Classroom discussion (0.82)

• Errors and trust are welcomed opportunities to learn (0.72)

       

      The core of Hattie’s visible learning and teaching is to make student learning visible to teachers and make teaching visible to students. In order to do that, teachers should apply more approaches with the effect size larger than 0.4, especially the one we do not usually allow in class, for instance, teachers working together as evaluators of their impact (0.93) and seek help from peers (0.83). Meanwhile we should care about students’ emotions and feelings with more mindful support to make them feel comfortable and welcomed in the classroom, remind them the importance of enough sleep, and apply more interactive activities besides using the slides to promote class discussion to increase the deeper cognitive thinking and social skills. 

      Traditional approach to learning loss was via remediation models which will keep students below grade level. This means students are never exposed to their enrollment grade level. Hattie’s suggestions now should be on an accelerated approach to close the learning loss caused by the pandemic. An acceleration model uses a student's enrollment grade level standards, and skills and fines support strategies to help them master their actual grade level material. In a sense, they do not receive a watered down version of their curriculum with all proper supported instructional strategy, and it keeps them at grade level. Hattie’s visible teaching and learning is about teachers and students actively engaged in instruction. Teacher teaches, then gets feedback from students to see if they comprehend. Could be an exit ticket, a quiz, a simple oral question. If students do not understand, the teacher then re-teaches it with a different strategy and again checks for understanding. This goes on until students understand and comprehend the standard the teacher was working with.

References

Drew, C. (2022). 13 Ways To Set High Expectations In The Classroom.

       https://helpfulprofessor.com/high-expectations-for-students/

Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers. Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.